National Cathedral

Quasimodo eat your heart out, because this Saturday I roamed a cathedral in a way that even the hunchback would be jealous of. We went on the roof. We went in the attics. We visited a staff conference room (because it had some stained glass). Back stairs and catwalks. We went everywhere!

Someone in the local bicycling community is a long-time docent at the cathedral and had organized a bike ride and group tour during Freezing Saddles. The bike ride included sites relevant to the cathedral (yes, Pierre L'Enfant had a spot in his DC plan for a national cathedral, but it was in a different spot - where the Portrait Gallery is today), and a tour of the cathedral itself. The event was popular and so he decided to repeat it. The problem is that he came down with some sort of flu and so didn't feel up to the bike ride part. Instead, we met at the cathedral and went straight to the tour part - which he expanded to an amazing three hours!

The cathedral

We started by riding a special staff elevator up to a balcony at the rear of the nave, where he had us try to line up a sight line so that everything was aligned, which we quickly discovered was impossible, because the cathedral is bent! Over its roughly 500 ft. length it bends about six feet. This is intentional and mimics classic Gothic cathedrals. Apparently there's some argument over whether the non-linearity of the historic European cathedrals was intentional or was just the limits of medieval engineering precision, but it's said to humanize the space more than linear perfection would. Likewise, the Gothic arches that line the nave are all unique - differing from each other by an inch or two here or there.

Looking down the length of the cathedral

We got really up close to one of the giant rose windows.

Another thing about this modern cathedral is that it honors not only religious events and stories, but also modern history and human achievement. and is also quite whimsical. An example of the former is the space exploration window. This stained glass window commemorates man's achievements in space travel. The view has a large moon (at the top), a smaller earth (at the botttom), and a very small distant yellow dot of our sun - it's from  the perspective of someone near the moon, looking at earth. The center of the moon contains an actual piece of moon rock brought back by the Apollo 11 astronauts. An example of whimsy is the Darth Vader grotesque (it's not a gargoyle - apparently every gargoyle is a grotesque but not every grotesque is a gargoyle, like squares and rectangles). We got an unusually good view of the dark lord of the Sith when we went out on the roof into what is technically a rain gutter but is really a walkway. Up there we also got some close up views of other grotesques and got to see some of the earthquake damage. In the large, the cathedral looks fine, but when you start looking at details, you can see how the 2011 earthquake really damaged things - missing pinnacles, broken details, etc.

The space exploration window

Darth Vader

Out on the roof

Grotesque

If you look closely you can see that sections of this pinnacle shifted in the earthquake. Other similar pinnacles toppled completely

Do you know the difference between a cathedral and a church? It's not size. A cathedral is the seat of a bishop. And there's a physical seat - a throne of sorts, called a cathedra.

The bishop's cathedra

The cathedral has two sets of bells: one is played by playing a vaguely piano-like controller, while the other are big bells played by pulling ropes. The keyboard-like controller allows the bell ringer to play melodies. When we were wandering the attic our guide had us peek into the bell ringer's office to see a duplicate of the bell controller that he uses to practice. As we were all peeking in, the office door opened - the bell ringer was in there, heard us outside, and invited us in! He even gave us a demonstration of the practice controller (which rings some very small bells) and showed us how bell music is notated.

Bell musician and the bell controller

Stairs to the bell tower

I was happy to see considerable Old Testament imagery. I can't tell Saint whomever from Saint So-and-So, but I recognize Moses when I see him!

Here's a swarthy Moses with beams of light emanating from his head/

Detail from a 16th century set of tapestries telling the David and Goliath story

A "boss stone" of Moses

Moses is surrounded by "boss stones" illustrating the ten commandments. This peeping Tom is coveting his neighbor's (naked!) wife

There's really too much to write about here. After three hours I felt we had just scratched the surface. I won't bore you with every picture and every factoid (did you know Woodrow Wilson is interred in the cathedral? Helen Keller?). The glass. The ironwork. The stonework. The hand-made tapestry kneelers honoring famous Americans. Let's just say that it's an extremely impressive building - the result of a century of construction, and I was lucky enough to get a private tour from an extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic docent.